Alien Scarlett Johansson Seduces Scottish Men (but Not Early Critics) in Under the Skin, Her Sexy Hitchhiker Movie

It reportedly took filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beastand Birth) nine years to make Under the Skin, a sci-fi drama starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien seductress who hijacks a sexy human body and feeds on her unsuspecting male prey while touring Scotland. Inspired by Michel Faber’s novel of the same name, the feature—the trailer for which was made available online today—shows Johansson’s extraterrestrial temptress wordlessly traipsing through scenic British Isles backdrops and attempting to mime occasional human interaction, all with the dead-eyed stare of someone who does not understand emotion or earthly behavior.

As intriguing as the movie seems and looks, early reviews and reports from the Telluride Film Festival, where it screened last week, have not been as promising. The Independentcalls it a “laughably bad alien hitchhiker movie,” while The Hollywood Reporternotes that at Telluride, “a not inconsiderable number of audience members were bummed—and walked out—when the film proved to be . . . stylish but lacking in substance.” The Telegraph, perhaps more impressed by Johansson (and her multiple full-frontal scenes), calls the film “mesmerisingly strange,” Johansson’s performance “iconic,” and her body “impossible.” At the moment, Under the Skin does not have a distributor, but it will attempt to entice more buyers this week when it screens at film festivals in Venice and Toronto.